Small Power Plant for Coal Mine

I agree on the stack being taller, also maybe a wee bit wider too.

Looks good, Just needs solar panels on the roofs.

Awesome

Great job - they just need a bit of weathering!

As always,  looks good Chris... though in my humble observation many mine power plants were a bit larger.  Most all were brick or brick/stone in the Appalachian coal fields with lots of windows for natural light.

Some had neat rail-type cinder conveyors to get the cinders out of the plant and into cars for disposal or to the "slay dump" (as slang for slate dump or "boney pile").  

And don't forget to tint your creek beds rust orange from the mine run-off - "sulfur crick" as they were called.

Maybe raise the height of the power plant by putting more pink foam under it. This effectively raises the height of the stacks.  Mines are not built on level ground and building base heights can be varied however you want for best appearance

Your stacks should be tapered. Wide at the bottom, narrower at the top.

Simon

Guys,

Thanks and exactly the type of comments I was looking for to gauge perceptions before I build this thing. I've done some research but knew I could use some insight and back and forth. I have some good things to chew on here and I'll get back to you guys.

This is the former Blue Coal facility in Ashley Pa. This may help with some height perspective. The breaker and boiler house along with other structures were demolished in 2014. The stack is all that remains.

Smoke stacks are fine.  Great project, thank you, for sharing the pictures.     A BTS, kit project, I did years ago, had a power plant and smoke stack.  Higher than the buildings, clean air flow across the top of the stack.  IMO.   

I should have posted these images first so you guys would know where I was coming from with the small power plant.

Jim Scorse, I think you are right, that stacks may need to get higher and a little wider.

Dan, Solar panels will definitely remove the need for stacks.

Erik and Sean, thanks for the kudos.

Rob, I agree, I'd rather have a much larger power plant. I may bump it up in size a bit, but I'm in a tight space and selective compression is needed here. The stone will also be a nice contrast with all the corrugated stuff on the main buildings.

I'm interested in the rail-type conveyers you mention but I'm not familiar with them. The side door on the mock-up nearest the rails is intended to get the ash out and into a gondola or hopper. Do you think it would be appropriate in this case for the rail-type converyers or better with some kind of platform with a chute or something? Whatever it is I don't think it should be too big.

HClark, I think that is a good idea to raise the building on the hill. At this point I have a road planned for along the base of the hill that runs behind the power plant and under the head house. I had considered trying to put the power plant on the other side of the road up on that hill and haven't ruled out trying to make that work somehow.

Simon, great observation. If I were using a brick stack the taper would definitely be true. But from the photo of the steel stack above and others I've seen, I'm not sure there is a taper on the steel stack, or is there? I realize there is no way to know what I intended to use as a stack from the mock-up.

Rail, that is a huge mine complex. Thanks for the image.

Mike, thanks for posting the photos of the nice mine complex you've built. I definitely need to add more shops and sheds around the complex for supplies and dynamite.

Thanks all for looking and giving your insights. I'm open to any more ideas or input here.

When I want to make a tapered smokestack, I either go to the local thrift store and buy a used pool cue, or buy a blemished baluster, from the hardware store, and go from there.

Chris,

I'd say the building size for the power plant is fine. Though you may want to make the building a bit taller. Perhaps move it back towards the hill. I see no need to raise it on a hill. Since you're modeling steel stacks what you have looks fine.

Chris

This will be excellent!

My only comment is in the name of art and composition, rather than being a slave to prototype fidelity:   Move it to the left so that more of it can clearly be seen. Possibly even a visual gap between the two. In any event move the stacks as far left on the building as realistically feasible.  With the stacks taller, they and the tipple can provide vertical "frames" for whatever colorful object you want to put on the tracks between them. Like a PRR Hopper.

Chris, making it taller if only a bit should help. Also, the doors are scale doors from Tichy,  but they are very tall and wide which might be fighting what I'm trying to accomplish. I'm going to look around for some shorter but still scale freight doors or maybe just make my own.

John, I still have the MTH Pennsylvania hopper you accidentally dropped into a train on my layout. It will be put into appropriate service in front of the fruit cake factory.

I'll have to give some more consideration to placement of the building.